


the bedrock

by bog gremlin (tomatocages)



Series: nonsexual intimacy prompts [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Healing, Hospitals, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Injury Recovery, M/M, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Post-Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:48:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25386310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatocages/pseuds/bog%20gremlin
Summary: After defeating the Robeast, and after Keith finally wakes up, Shiro liberates him from the hospital for an afternoon. Possibly this was premature of him.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: nonsexual intimacy prompts [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1838314
Comments: 7
Kudos: 106





	the bedrock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Spatzi_Schatz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spatzi_Schatz/gifts).



> Nonsexual intimacy prompt: head scratches ([ originally posted on twitter 6/18/20](https://twitter.com/boggremlin/status/1273634053850357760))

Keith’s been allowed out of the hospital for increasingly long stretches, so Shiro takes the initiative and steals him away one afternoon. 

Is it really stealing? Shiro escorts Keith out, sitting properly in a wheelchair, and the nurses at the aid station wave cheerfully as he walks by. Shiro can’t steal Keith because he doesn’t own him, though he does _owe_ him. Shiro’s still sorting through the jumble left in his head, from the clone and from the astral plane, but he thinks that Keith belongs to Shiro and Shiro belongs to Keith. 

There’s a desert garden a few clicks away from base. Colleen Holt planted it before it was safe to actually leave the base, a small act of rebellion during the invasion. The garden is centered around a tiny aquifer, some rogue cacti, and a riot of yellow poppies and purple lupines. Shiro goes there to think, sometimes, when he can manage to extricate himself from his obligations to the Garrison or tear himself away from his obligations to the paladins — usually at night, when the wildflowers are wrapped tight within themselves. Colleen planted primrose and four o’clocks, too, and if it isn’t full dark, Shiro tries to enjoy them.

He takes Keith there now, on their first foray out of the hospital. It’s a hot day, hotter than the days used to be before the war; Shiro liked the desert fine when he was younger, and he knows that Keith always thrived in it. But the fighting has destroyed whole swaths of the landscape, and toppled rock faces, and dried up groundwater that used to flow deep. This aquifer is precious. 

There’s a moment of consternation — Shiro did not think to bring anything upon which to sit, and Keith is still too tender, really, to recline on the ground. 

“Didn’t think this through,” he laughs. But he’s ashamed; once again, Shiro has failed him.

“Don’t worry,” Keith says. He looks a little watered-down, his paleness accentuated by the sun. He’s leaning heavily into Shiro’s side already, a reversal of the supporting role Keith has always had. “I’m stronger than I look.”

“You don’t have to be,” Shiro says. He sits awkwardly against one of the rocks half-sheltered by the shaggy primrose, and guides Keith down to rest against his chest. “Here — I’m big enough to use as a house, lean on me.”

Keith goes limp against him, like a cat relaxing. Good; maybe he’ll finally sleep. The hospital is impossible, full of medics on rounds, constantly poking at him, especially since they found out about the whole half-Galra thing. “You’re not a house,” Keith says, groggy already. “You’re a home.”

Shiro doesn’t say anything to that — he can’t speak around the lump in his throat. Instead, he threads his fingers into Keith’s hair and scratches lightly, rubbing at his tender scalp. The medical team didn’t shave Keith’s head after they recovered him from the fall, but they probably should have; there’s a line of dense sutures right at his hairline, and the hair around them is a little matted, even after a sponge bath. 

“Don’t stop,” Keith mutters, pressing his face deeper into the little hollow at the base of Shiro’s neck. It compounds the lump in his throat, whether from the pressure or the reassuring weight of Keith against him, alive.

Shiro hushes Keith, but keeps scrubbing gently at the back of Keith’s skull, stroking the fingers of his ridiculous, huge hand over the temporal and occipital bones. “I won’t,” he says. “Relax. I’ll be here when you wake up.”


End file.
